Age of Wonders
 

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Review and Download (if available)

I have a soft spot for that game. It's like Heroes of Might & Magic with less colorful sugar coating, meaning AoW visual style is more edible for me. (True for all 3DO / New World Computing Might and Magic games, I was unpleasantly surprised how poorly their famous RPG titles look, as if designed by a nerdy kid with lousy sense of humor, not somebody with a degree in visual arts.)

I was amazed when enemy army lifted the siege on my city after I've destroyed their siege units - AI knew it's pointless to go on.

Game is good itself, and have a lot of interesting findings - but their maps are too empty and vast for my opinion, and heroes are overpowered, if you keep it from mission to mission. :) Trade IQ of enemies is quite poor though.

The 1.0 release was braindead as far as diplomatic AI was concerned--literally. But they improved upon it. It was far better than in its successor, though I still prefer Master of Magic in terms of overall mechanics.

Fallen Enchantress is looking pretty good too, at the moment, but that's off-subject.

I played AoW2 a lot and for a good reason I wished to try the original too. After doing so it has come to my conclusion that Age of Wonders certainly is one of the best turn-based strategy series out there. Diversity, challenge and lore are unique and molded together perfectly.

This is the first review I actually read in a while (slightly ashamed by that) and I got to say solid job there, TA.

I'm also happy "Add to favorites" button is working. :D

Age of Wonders is an amazing game that i still play trying to finish the extra maps of the campaign, the ones you don't choose when you have a choice between 2 missions. I wish they'd still make such games today, anyone shoud try this gem! I hope Triumph Studios will bring us a part 3! Oh, by the way, Good Old Games sell this game too.

I used to love this game. Seeing the review I realized it has been already 13 years, God, time flies.

The plot was the strongest point for me, and really captivated me back then.

I recently bought this, to satisfy a fantasy strategy game craving, but was disappointed.

As the reviewer said it combines elements of various other games, Master of Magic and Heroes of Might and Magic are mentioned, and although Warlords is not mentioned it is very similar to that game too.

Personally I feel it fails to match up to any of those games. It lacks the character, wealth of entertaining and imaginative features, and cool graphics of Heroes OMM. That was a great game, the whole mood of it captured you.

Secondly, it's got elements of Warlords 3, but without the fun of doing quests (these used to be great); and the units aren't as cool either. It just doesn't have the excitement and surprises, and the buzz of getting cool units join you that Warlords 3 had.

And thirdly, the battle mode seems to copy Master of Magic, but do it worse. The movement around the battle screen is horrible, it's boring to fight the battles, and the way battles work is annoying. Archery units can't function as support units as to get into range they have to move into the range of enemy charge. The way damage is done doesn't work for me either.
The magic doesn't grab me at all, and the city management has nothing to it.

It just seems to me that it falls way way short of those 3 great games.
I gave it a 3 (I would give HOMM III a 5* score, Warlords III 4.5* and Master of Magic 4*)